Clint Hocking To Keynote At GameX 2009

Yes, its true! A recent press release from the steering committee has been issued and one of today's most prominent gaming minds is going to be giving a keynote speech at the GameX Industry Summit.

Official press release below:

GameX Industry Summit Announces Ubisoft Creative Director as Keynote Speaker

Clint Hocking Takes On Hyper Realism in Game Design

The GameX Industry Summit has announced its third confirmed keynote speaker, Clint Hocking, creative director for Ubisoft Montreal. Co-located with GameX (Games & Media Expo) on October 24-25, 2009.

Hocking began his career at Ubisoft as a level designer on the original Splinter Cell, eventually taking on roles of game designer and scriptwriter. Splinter Cell was nominated for seven Game Developer's Choice Awards (including nominations for Excellence in Level Design, Game Design and Scriptwriting) . Along with writer JT Petty, Hocking was honored for his writing work with the first-ever Game Developer's Choice Award for Excellence in Scriptwriting.

Hocking continued to develop the Splinter Cell franchise as lead level designer, scriptwriter, and creative director on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - the highest rated Splinter Cell to date with an aggregate review score of 94%. Clint next took on the role of Creative Director on Far Cry 2, a controversial title that took players into the ‘Heart of Darkness' of a fully realized African state torn apart by civil war. Both innovative and acclaimed, Far Cry 2 was another hit for Ubisoft.

Game industry professionals are invited to hear Hocking speak at the GameX Industry Summit. The summit centers around two days of games-focused lectures, panels, roundtables and keynotes from the best and brightest minds in the games business. GameX Industry Summit features the Philly Game Jam, a 48-hour game development marathon.  In addition, GameX Industry Summit attendees have access to GameX, a game consumer convention supported by a major media sponsor, NBC Local Media in Philadelphia - WCAU TV/NBC 10. 

Hocking's keynote, entitled "The Territory is not the Map: Hyper Realism and the New Immersion Paradigm," examines the potential long-term future of gaming by looking at the accelerating convergence between rising technologies and competing media from the internet, games, music and narrative media.  Hocking will also explore augmented reality and the prominence of portable wireless devices and their design relevance in contrast to the linear, authored structures of previous generations of media that have been culturally dominant.

Hocking states, "As our media become more richly interactive and as our experience of the world becomes increasingly fragmented and parallelized, a new media culture is disintegrating the old.  Games of the future will reflect this cultural shift by themselves becoming more fragmentary, more parallelized, and less focused on rich simulation and traditional notions of immersion. My keynote talk at GameX Industry Summit will explore this idea fully."

Darius Kazemi, president of Orbus Gameworks and chapter president for IGDA Boston, adds, "Like no other game developer, Clint Hocking is at the forefront of both theory and practice in game design. His presentations and articles are brilliant and thought-provoking, and his commercial games prove that he not only talks the talk, but walks the walk."

In addition to working as a game developer, Hocking is active in the game development community, and is a vocal proponent of games as an emerging medium and art form. Clint is on the advisory board of the Montreal IGDA Chapter, and is a frequent speaker at the Game Developers Conference and other conferences around the world. He also maintains a blog which can be found HERE.

For more information about GameX Industry Summit and to register for this exciting event please visit the official website: http://www.gamexpo.us/summit/